


go and catch a falling star

by knifetwin



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Howl's Moving Castle Fusion, Jeonghan as Howl/Seungcheol as Sophie, M/M, Magic, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:14:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24117811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knifetwin/pseuds/knifetwin
Summary: In sixth grade, a social worker asks Jeonghan what he wants to be when he grows up. He doesn’t know, and so he opens a door to another world and he swallows a falling star and he builds a castle that can fly.Later, even he’ll admit that it was an overreaction.Seungcheol can only think of one thing worse than being cursed by a witch, and that's getting captured by the heart-eating Wizard Yoon. He's never thought of himself as lucky, and this just proves it.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Yoon Jeonghan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	go and catch a falling star

In sixth grade, a social worker asks Jeonghan what he wants to be when he grows up. He doesn’t know, and so he opens a door to another world and he swallows a falling star and he builds a castle that can fly. 

Later, even he’ll admit that it was an overreaction. 

On his 28th birthday, Seungcheol turns 78. It isn’t much of a surprise. 

Not that he’s the kind of person this sort of thing happens to - ‘this sort of thing’ meaning magic. Seungcheol is the second son of a third son of a third son. The third son of a third son of a third son is a king, or a warrior, or a god. The second son is usually a baker, but Seungcheol has a flour allergy, so he makes hats. 

It’s his uncle’s hat shop. His father, who was the third son of a third son of a third son, died a hero in the War. There’s a memorial fountain in the marketplace for him, and for all of the men who perished in glorious battle. Seungcheol doesn’t go there often: he was two when his father died, and the only thing he can remember is his slightly scratchy mustache. His brother visits at least once a week, sitting by the fountain edge and whispering stories to the water. His brother is the first-born, and so he is a witch.

Seungcheol has the type of face people around here call ‘comely’, but never when he’s around to hear. He’s a nice boy, but so _quiet_ , always muttering at felt and staring out the window with an absent sort of smile. When he was younger people would discourage their children from playing with him - not out of any outward cruelty, just an abundance of caution. Unluckiness _sticks_ like glue. If he’d had a hint of magic it might have been better, but he’s a sad, mundane boy, and nobody wants their children to grow up with a jinx like that hanging off their arm, no matter how bright his eyes get when he smiles. 

“I don’t mind,” Seungcheol assures his uncle, “really, I don’t.” His uncle makes a good show of believing him, and Seungcheol is always too easily preoccupied to notice the way his face inevitably crumples. 

The War, which is old, grows older. Life does, too. Men with grand destinies march onward towards them. Seungcheol’s uncle dies and leaves the hat shop to him. His brother, who doesn’t care much for tradition, nevertheless leaves small Port Haven to find a teacher of magic. He doesn’t depart without worry: he doesn’t want to leave Seungcheol alone, he tells Seungcheol the day before he departs, his face wide and sweet with worry. concern. “Without me you’ll waste away until you become an old man.” 

“I already _am_ an old man,” Seungcheol says, “and if I drop dead of loneliness you’ll just have to bewitch me back to life.” 

And so left to his lonesome, Seungcheol becomes a surprisingly adept hat-maker. He likes the work, bent brims and needles, thread tugged neatly between straw. Here, alone in the shop, between the bobbins and the red ribbons, he can hear himself think. Here, he has no future beyond the last length of thread. _Maybe my destiny_ , he thinks, _is to be alone_. 

He’s wrong, but it takes a witch to prove it. 

Three months after their uncle dies, the Witch of the Waste commissions a hat. If Seungcheol cared more for the king or for tradition, he would do the right thing and report this unauthorized enemy contact to the palace once and for all. He doesn’t care for the king or for tradition, though, so he sends the Witch her hat. The witch writes back to express her thanks. Seungcheol sends her a complimentary hat pin.

A few months pass. Seungcheol sits down at his table, watching as the trains rattle by and listening to the gossip on the wireless - _the Crown Prince Wonwoo has vanished, Wizard Yoon has stolen another perons’ heart, the King mobilizes forces on the Waste’s edge,_ until all of a sudden there is a knock at the windowpane. A three-eyed bird sits on the sill, cocking its head delicately at Seungcheol. In its beak is a note, with the Witch’s sigil burned into its center. 

Seungcheol takes the note, and the bird explodes. 

This time, the Witch wants a much grander hat, one made out of feathers, black feathers, black feathers stolen from that rare bird which flies in the neutral space between the stars. The bird she’s given Seungcheol looks like an ordinary raven, but he’s not about to say _that_ to the Witch of the Waste. Besides, these feathers are long and beautiful, and when he runs his fingers over them they bristle as though aching for the sky. 

“You’re going to be beautiful,” he whispers to the hat, and it preens in his hands. 

Soon, he has commissions a mile high for hats just like the Witch’s - raven black, and blue birds, and peacocks, until the shop is an avian menagerie. Rumor gets out that the boy the Wizard Yoon seduced last week was wearing a hat made out of pure owl down, and zoologists are forced to relocate the local flock to the Kingsbury Zoo for temporary protection. 

Hats are in, and Seungcheol becomes popular.

Hats are out, and Seungcheol becomes unpopular. 

He doesn’t mind. He’d missed the silence. 

Eventually everything goes wrong, as it must: a news broadcasts ends its program with a small jab at the Witch of the Waste, who was spotted wearing her old, positively _dowdy_ raven hat last week. “Apparently, she hasn’t gotten the messenger pigeon yet.” Seungcheol smiles to himself and switches off the radio.

She arrives at the shop three hours later. Her body is cloaked in raven feathers. Her eyes are green like malice. Seungcheol doesn’t have time to speak before she, her wings, her feathers, her shadows, envelop him; doesn’t have the presence of mind to remember anything but that old, moronic advice: _the most important rule, boys: never, never, never insult a witch._

“How’s this for unfashionable?” the Witch coos into his ear. Seungcheol tries to whimper, but his throat is too dry to produce any sound. 

Feathers lick his skin, and then they don’t. Seungcheol feels alive, and then, he doesn’t. 

When Seungcheol wakes up, he’s 78 years old. He knows this because when he looks in the mirror, he sees a man who’s been dead for three years. 

“This could be worse,” he watches his uncle say. Watches - himself - say. The realization should shock him dead. He frowns instead. 

Seungcheol looks around the shop. The tables are lined with half-finished hats. But he can see that the stitchwork is too fine for his eyes to pick out, the needles too small for his fingers to thread. This old body is useless and strange and sad, which is a familiar but still unpleasant feeling. 

He supposes he could claim he’s his uncle come back from the dead, or call his brother back from his apprenticeship and beg him for help. Seungcheol sits down and thinks hard, trying to feel out which path his destiny lies upon. Destiny, as tends to, ignores him, and so he looks into his heart, which is often unused but still beats strong. Neither path is right, it tells him, and Seungcheol believes it. Nobody likes zombies, and his brother is already preoccupied enough with his training to be distracted by something as silly as this. Seungcheol has survived on his own long enough, and he’s going to continue for as long as he has left. 

His bones feel very old. The years before him feel very short. “No use wasting them here,” he says, and it feels like a decision. 

It will be some time before he remembers that today was supposed to be his birthday. 

Seungcheol takes down his uncle’s walking stick and packs up a small bundle of food. He ties up the blinds and empties the till, and he locks the door tight behind him. He sets off down the path towards the edge of town, and then, towards beyond. 

The path to beyond is more difficult than he’d anticipated. For every cart that stops to offer him a wife or farm wife pushing him into their kitchen for water and bread and conversation, there’s another crick in his neck or shudder to his knees. He sleeps under the stars and wakes up feeling surprisingly spry. By the time the sun has set his body is once again worn to pieces. Age has its downsides. 

Two days ago, he saw the castle for the first time.

Well, the first time _since._ He would see it sometimes before in Port Haven, years back when he was younger and the war was, too. People made such a fuss about the bellowing, mechanical beast, so loud you could hear it coming from miles and miles away, which was almost certainly the point. It looked like a monstrosity, but people would still swoon for every sighting. Nobody Seungcheol knew had ever _seen_ the Wizard Yoon, but they all assured themselves he was the most handsome, the most striking, the most _wonderful_ person he’d ever seen. And yes, that business with the hearts was rather ghastly, but - those _eyes_! 

And then some young pretty thing would vanish from the countryside, and the town elders would tsk and talk about passing some proclamation against all wizards, or at least all wizards who eat hearts; everyone would nod solemnly in agreement, because there really _had_ to be a line somewhere, even if the person standing on the other side of it looked like _that_ (raven hair, or golden hair, or hair as pink as a summer sunset). And then there would be another sighting of the Witch on this side of the Waste, and everyone would get too distracted to worry about silly proclamations or stolen hearts, and so on, and so on. 

Seungcheol has never cared about the Wizard Yoon one way or another, and he still doesn’t. When he saw the castle, he just gave it a long look and then a little shake of his head before walking away. The castle hovered petulantly in a nearby field for a few minutes before drifting away. The next morning Seungcheol saw it wafting along 20 miles in the other direction. He just shrugged and continued on his way. Easy enough to ignore. 

Well, no. _Hard_ to ignore, now, as it looms in front of him so closely it almost smacks him in the face. 

“Hmm,” Seungcheol says. He suspects he’s too calm about this. About the Wizard Yoon. About the hearts. Maybe the Witch took his rationality along with his youth. Either way, he’s too tired to go around; and besides, it was the _castle_ that cut into his path, not the other way around. Seungcheol reaches up and raps his father’s cane sharply against the castle door one, two, three times. _Move,_ commands his cane. 

The castle moves. Towards him.

“What,” Seungcheol says. And then, scrunching up his nose: “ _I told you to move_.” He rams his cane again, so hard this time so that the siding rattles. He does it again and again, and when he sees the dent he’s started to create feels a strange sense of satisfaction. 

“Stop it!” Someone inside the castle is yelling at him. There is someone inside. Seungcheol stops mid-swing, and looks back towards the castle door. It’s opened half an inch, just large enough for an eye to peer through. Seungcheol blinks at the eye. The eye blinks back. The door slams shut.

“Hey!” Seungcheol yells, rushing forward as quickly as his old body allows. He pounds on the door with his fists and with his cane and with his gumption. Inside, there’s a rattle and a hiss and a low, mechanical groan. Two voices are yelling, both young, both heated. _Both_ voices. 

Seungcheol stops and takes a step back. He looks at the dent he’s just put in the castle. In the Wizard Yoon’s castle. In the Wizard Yoon’s castle, where he eats the hearts of innocents. 

Seungcheol is glad the Witch took his youth. There won’t be a lot left to mourn when the Wizard comes for him. 

The door swings open. Seungcheol winces. 

“Hey!” calls one of those young voices. He’s a boy, just a few years younger than Seungcheol - was. HIs eyes are bright and his hair is black. “Seungkwan says you have to come inside! He says you have to come inside _right now_!” 

“Who in the world is Seungkwan?” Seungcheol yells back, backing away from the door. The castle follows him. Seungcheol is starting to hate the castle. 

“Seungkwan is the fire,” the boy says, “and he’s really pissed and he says,” the boy pauses pauses, listening to someone inside, “he says you have to come inside because you moved the castle and then you _dented_ it and he’s not gonna take the fall for that. Oh, shit, actually - yeah, you should come inside, if Seungkwan says he didn’t do it Jeonghan is just gonna _assume_ it was me, which is _completely_ unfair but what else is new - here, old man, let me help you in.” 

Before Seungcheol can think of anything to say - _Seungkwan is the fire? Jeonghan? Old man?_ \- the boy has grabbed beneath his armpits and is hoisting him up. The door slams shut behind them. They are inside the castle, and the fire is yelling at him.

The fire is named Seungkwan, and it calms down. 

“I’m just saying,” he - it - _he_ says, “we wouldn’t have moved in the first place if it wasn’t for you!” 

Seungcheol makes a small noise. Truth be told, he’s much more interested in this armchair than the _talking fir_ e. Four days into 78 and Seungcheol is already learning to appreciate the creature comforts. He closes his eyes, sinking into the soft feather cushions. A much better option than haystacks, he thinks, and sighs deeply. 

“Seungkwan,” says the boy, “I don’t think the old guy is listening to you.” 

The boy’s name is Chan, and he’s currently trying to steal Seungcheol’s walking stick. Seungcheol seizes his stick and raps Chan on the shins. Chan gives him a wounded expression, but lets go and moves instead to crouch by the fire. He snaps small bits of wood off of a small pile and feeds them to the fire-creature, which consumes them whole-twig.

Seungcheol watches the two of them now, boy and fire, fire and boy. They’re obviously friends, or maybe familiars of the Wizard Yoon. They don’t talk about him as though they fear him; Seungkwan calls him a _sparkle-brained idiot_ , and Chan laughs when Seungcheol asks if they’re planning to eat his heart. It’s odd, Seungcheol thinks, their laughter, given the man they call ‘master’.

“What are you looking at?” Chan asks. It’s said without malice, just curiosity. He doesn’t look as though his heart’s been eaten. Yet. 

“What is this place?” he asks finally. His voice is dry and leathery. Chan is young, and he is old, old, old. “I mean, I know what this place is, we all do, but what are _you_ doing here?” 

“Oh, well,” Chan says, straightening a little, “my name is Chan, I’m Jeonghan’s assistant-” 

The fire crackles, “He’s Jeonghan’s cousin and his mom thinks he’s spending the summer in Daegu-” 

“ _And_ ,” Chan continues, a little crossly, “his friend. _This_ is Seungkwan. He’s fire, and he runs the castle and Jeonghan’s magic, and if he burns out Jeonghan will die.” 

Chan and Seungkwan look at Seungcheol. Seungcheol looks back at the two of them. Chan is smiling encouragingly. Seungkwan is fire. 

“Okay,” Seungkwan says, and then he faints. 

He’s stuck in between awake and asleep, and he doesn’t want to leave. His body is lighter - maybe it’s the chair, or maybe it’s that the ache in his bones has all but disappeared. He feels fuller, less stretched out, _normal_ , and he wants to touch his face to reaffirm the wrinkles but when he does his eyes snap open, and his body is heavy again.

“Oh, no,” he says, and then he sees the wizard. 

They’re all there now, by the hearth, staring at him as though he’s just done a magic trick. Chan’s mouth is hanging open, and Seungkwan’s sparking gray and yellow. Seungcheol wants to ask what’s happened, but he finds that the world’s been stopped short by the third man, the new man.

This third man is tall, but not gaunt. He has long silver hair, deep black eyes, and a neckline too improper to be anything but deliberate. He’s young, younger than Seungcheol - _well, obviously._ People say his mouth is filled with of razor blades, but when he smiles, Seungcheol can’t see his teeth.

While he was sleeping, the Wizard Yoon arrived. 

“Jeonghan,” Chan says, “this is what I was talking about, he made the castle follow him, and then he fell asleep and _then_ he did - _that_...” He gestures to the whole of Seungcheol. “ It’s freaking me out. I’m sorry, Grandpa, but I don’t like it.” 

“Grandpa?” Seungcheol mouths at Chan. Before he can respond, the Wizard Yoon is crossing across the room towards his chair. He’s wearing his cloak made out of stars, the one they say was commissioned at five million gold pieces and then paid for with a kiss. It whispers across Seungcheol’s skin, gentler than anything he’s felt in days. 

The Wizard Yoon looms above him, the Heart Eater, the King’s Own Sword, the Bastard Djinn, and Seungcheol thinks, _they never say how young he is._

The Wizard Yoon looks down at Seungcheol for a long, impossible moment. Seungcheol feels something tug at his - hair? no, his _brain_ , but when he reaches up to swat it away he finds that there’s nothing there. 

Small tendrils prod beneath his skin, rummaging through his veins like vermin. Seungcheol knows without being told that they’re sniffing out his secrets. Seungcheol thinks, crossly, _stop that_ , and the sensation freezes. He concentrates once more, and the tendrils vanish with a petulant _poof._

Seungcheol looks up, frowning. The Wizard Yoon looks confused, and then intrigued. 

“See, Jeonghan? Do you see what he _does_?” Chan is excited and confused. Seungkwan sparks at him irritably. 

“Let him _work_.” 

“I’m sorry about this, old one, but I need to understand.” The Wizard Yoon holds out his hand, and Seungcheol’s mouth opens of its own accord. He feels his insides, guts and memories and every word he’s ever spoken spooling out from inside of him and into the Wizard Yoon’s waiting palm in a fine, silvery mist, which the Wizard Yoon twirls around in his hand like a thin ribbon. Whatever he sees must please him, because he gives Seungcheol another small smile, and tucks the mist away into the depths of his cloak.

“Give that back, Heart Eater,” says Seungcheol crossly. He can’t feel anything missing, but he doesn’t like the thought of the Wizard Yoon mishandling any part of him. 

The Wizard Yoon looks delighted. “I haven’t heard Heart Eater in a while! But please, call me Jeonghan instead. If you’d like! And you’re…” He touches the part of his cloak where the mist vanished into. “Seungcheol. Nice name, for an old man. You’re welcome to stay the night, Seungcheol, although I can’t promise it will be more comfortable than your haystacks.” 

“Stay… the night?”

“Yes, we’re currently twenty miles off shore. If you want Seungkwan to let you out, of course, just ask - I’m not a great swimmer, but if you’d like to risk it you’re welcome to try! Chan, if you don’t mind?” The Wizard Yoon gives Seungcheol a nod, and then strides away in a swirl of black and velvet. The cloak gets a tangled up around his ankles. It only ruins the mystique a little. 

Chan gives Seungcheol that same curious, confused look before hurrying away towards the back of the cavernous living room, where he and the Wizard Yoon bend over a workbench, arguing over what looks like a dirty rag doll. Chan leans over the doll and whispers something; the doll explodes in a poof of green and golden sparks. They both look pleased.

Seungcheol, slowly, looks back towards the fire. Who can talk.

“You can talk,” he tells the fire. The fire flushes orange.

“It’s all because of Jeonghan,” he tells Seungcheol. “Without him I wouldn’t be much of anything. Of course,” he lets off a few sparks, which remind Seungcheol of a wink, “that goes both ways.”

Seungcheol has no way of responding to that, so he doesn’t. Instead he sits back in the overly comfortable armchair, in the moving castle of the Wizard Yoon ( _call me Jeonghan_ ), flying across the ocean towards Port Haven or Kingsbury or some young beauty's heart. He isn’t a great swimmer either, and besides, the Wizard Yoon was right - there are a few springs poking into his back, but it’s infinitely better than the hedge he’d been planning on sleeping beneath. 

Besides, he thinks, somewhat sadly, but mostly practically, if he’s going to die he’d rather it be while he’s warm and relatively peaceful. 

Chan barks a Word of Power, and the castle shakes. Seungkwan yells for another log, and grumbles as he’s fed twigs. The Wizard Han smiles with his whole mouth, and Seungcheol feels very, very old. 

In the end, Seungcheol drifts to sleep listening to the fire and the Wizard Yoon bickering over whether or not he will permit the wizard to cook a pan of bacon on his forehead. Chan fell asleep a few hours ago, curled up by the hearth, and the Wizard Yoon laid a blanket across his shoulders which he’s curled beneath like a cat, or a very grown-up kitten. From outside there is the sound of waves, and from inside, the crackling fire, and for the first time since the Witch cast this spell upon his body, his bones do not ache. 

**Author's Note:**

> this should only be about three chapters; i'm hoping to update it if not every sunday then at least every other sunday! please comment and let me know what you think :3 i'm just now getting back into kpop after being out of fandom for a few years, please come bug me on twitter at [knifetwin](http://twitter.com/knifetwin) (i need people to cry with about minghao!)


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